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Is google too volatile to rely on? Should I move to PPC? (screenshots attached)

I've attached 2 analytics screenshots of sites of mine. I can't believe how volatile google has been this year for no apparant reason. The on site of my sites has not changed much throughout the year and I've not spent any serious amount of time on link building after initially building some links when the sites where first launched. As you can see from Screenshot 1 show gradual growth throughout the year but in August google completely killed all traffic from my site. Disheartened I pretty much gave up and didn't spend any time on the site at all. The for no reason in September the site bounced back with more traffic than ever.

The second screenshot for another of my sites shows intial growth and the google kills the visits again in April. It's not until June that the site starts to see growth again but after it reaches its peak mid October google kills all traffic again!

Does anyone else think that google is far to volatile for any serious business to rely on it for generating customers? I'm considering moving to PPC which is probably the end game for google but early tests show conversion rates are much lower on adwords which I don't really understand as it's essentially the same traffic source. I've been careful to create relevant landing pages for keywords in adwords.

5 Responses

Does anyone else think that google is far to volatile for any serious business to rely on it for generating customers?

I have been working on the web for over ten years and my experience is that stuff happens in your favor and stuff happens in someone else's favor. Stuff is always happening. And there are different types of stuff.

You are pointing at "Google Stuff". The algos and special efforts can kill websites. I have been lucky that Google Stuff has not been too much of a problem. I got hit by Panda on two sites but knew what to do and recovered.

The stuff that I would point at is "Competitor Stuff". I am always finding places to make money and enjoying them and then powerful competitors swoop in and I gotta fight for it. I usually survive but there are a few places where I have quit, mainly because I either can't compete with discounters or refuse to compete with them. So I put my efforts into something else.

Then you have the combination of Google Stuff and Competitor Stuff. An example is that Google knows that they can't identify quality content or quality businesses with their algo, so they use Brand Names as a substitute for quality. As an example, if you sell in a specific niche of "toys" you can easily be beaten by "Toys R Us" if they have one crappy product in your niche... or Amazon if some third party seller has just one product in your niche. Big domains have a huge huge advantage.

So, it is very risky to make a living on the web. Don't do it unless you have other income but then it if hard to compete on the web because you have to spend time earning that other income.... and a company who has a dedicated team of twenty people can put you out of business if they put a target on your niche. That will happen to you sooner or later if you are in a profitable niche. They will find you eventually, if they didn't find you years ago. More "Competitor Stuff".

I'm considering moving to PPC which is probably the end game for google

I have spent a lot of time on PPC and have done lots of training and reading. And I like math and word challenges. It does not matter how smart you are here. IF you are not able to get huge discounts by purchasing your merchandise by the train load and have shipping centers in all parts of the country to get local shipping rates for every customer, then you are going to be killed at PPC. The people who have the volume and the shipping centers will have such a cost advantage on you that you will either not be able to outbid them or they will sell at such a low cost that you can't compete. For me, PPC is a losing game.

Also, I think that SEO is a losing game. It is not about SEO anymore (other than being sure that your title tags, etc. crawlability and technical stuff is done right). It is all about building a great website these days. That is the only way to compete today IMO and hope that your competitor does not outspend or outcreate you their too.

Dangerous to make a living on the web these days. It is like a mouse trying to survive in the jungle.

No, I don't think it is but I do know of one business recently who has given up chasing organic search and just invested their time and money in PPC, but then they were not listed on page 1 anyway, so it was a simpler decision for them to do that and go for quick wins with paid search.

Should you move to PPC?

If you are receiving organic click throughs then you must be ranking well for one or more keywords. Should you give that up and not bother with Google organic at all and go solely PPC? I would suggest you don't do that. Whilst, your organic rankings are not just going to disappear because you have paid not attention to your page's SEO, that is not to say other sites won't step in ahead of you.

However, if the volatility you have experienced (and screenshot 1 for August is dramatic) is hurting your revenue, then you should consider backing it up with PPC. But only of course if the cost of clicks is less than the revenue you are receiving from them, so make sure you measure.

On Adwords click through, it always has been lower than organic search results because the person viewing them doesn't give them as much trust as organic results. They are more obviously ads and so people are not so willing to click on them when other non-ad links are presented to them. It's interesting that over time Google have lightened the background colour of Adwords (to be almost invisible now) just to try to make them appear the same an increase click through.

As I am sure you know, the best way to improve click through rate though is to pay close attention to the headline and the words of the ad, but they are still unlikely to generate as much traffic as top ranking organic links.

It does appear to be increasingly volatile and I do worry about some of my clients - their marketing backbone is usually a single website, with little marketing diversity - so sometimes I am recommending multiple websites covering distinct niches rather than a single website - and I'm even focusing more on non-digital marketing to some extent. It's more work yet spreads the risk.

None of the websites I have worked with re: content/SEO campaigns have been hit, yet an increasing volume of my work deals with fixing websites suffering volatility for a number of reasons - what is clear is that there are mounting issues even when people haven't purposefully been gaming the system.

PPC is quite possibly worth including as part of your mix anyway - I usually run PPC alongside organic/PR/content work to maximise results.

Thanks for the replies. As a small business I do the big brand dominating the SERPS which is worrying. I don't have the ability to be the lowest priced in my field which makes the game even harder. The profit margins on PPC aren't really there so I'm going to have to be really clever about keywords and monitoring adwords closely.

I think a mix of PPC and organic might be the way to go. I feel that I've put together a good website and played the game according to googles rules however they still insist on slapping me every so often. I'll keep up with the SEO but try to find other traffic streams as opposed to rely on google too much. It's a great source of traffic but too volatile for me!

Depending on the client and the budget, the way forward in our opinion is an integrated marketing strategy. As EGOL has mentioned, it is quite tough to survive with just one tactic because eventually that niche will be identified by the other players and they will beat you if they have deeper pockets. You cannot just rely on SEO to provide your client a return. The strategy now has to be a mix of SEO, PPC, social media, email marketing and other mediums that are relevant to the client's niche.

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